20demayo Chapter 13 Prologue
Chapter 13 Prologue
After saying goodbye to John and the others, he rode his motorcycle away from Mojave and headed east along the ruined roads toward the capital wasteland.
The motorcycle engine kept roaring, the wheels kicked up dust, and the scenery on both sides kept rushing past. I had very little rest time along the way. Apart from the two hours of sleep I slept each day, I spent all the rest of the time traveling.
This kind of routine is impossible for ordinary people to maintain, but because of the support of his internal soul power, it is not difficult for him.
Although the boy's soul power did not increase at all during his years in the wasteland, it was because there were no soul rings here to help him break through.
However, the boy began to discover that by circulating his soul power in his body day after day, just like he used to cultivate, he could maintain his focus for a longer time than others, did not need as much rest, and even had a certain resistance to radiation.
This might be the effect of soul power itself, but he couldn't explain it clearly. However, it did save him more time on his journey.
Of course, he also needed to replenish fuel and food along the way.
This allowed Huo Yuhao to witness firsthand what was happening outside of Mojave along the way.
The boy traded goods with indigenous tribes in the desert, bought supplies from some simple settlements and towns, repaired things for the residents of the wasteland, and helped harvest crops in the fields to obtain food from them.
He fought bandits and mutated creatures, and even battled slave traders in some areas within Caesar's Legion's territory, witnessing the lives of the inhabitants there.
They also heard that Graham, who led the legion to attack the Hoover Dam, was poured with asphalt and set on fire by Caesar after the battle and thrown into the canyon. Miraculously, he survived under the watchful eyes of Caesar and the other legion members, and left the canyon alone without a trace.
Huo Yuhao did not stop. He crossed the Mississippi River and came to the east, getting closer and closer to his destination.
In the East, there are organizations of all sizes, more slave traders, and countless bandits, but there is no New California Republic.
Then, to help him find his father, and also to have an extra helper when he was searching for a way home in the capital wasteland, the two of them and a dog temporarily formed a team.
To some extent, Huo Yuhao was able to team up with Long Wande because the two of them were both searching for something.
Of course, after learning that Long Wande had been kicked out of the shelter, he half-jokingly said to him, "How can this not be a good thing? After all, there aren't many normal shelters that I've heard of or seen."
Along the way, Huo Yuhao did see many shelters, and whether they were abandoned or operational, they were all conducting some kind of experiment.
This left him with a bad impression of the Vault, where the danger was even greater than in the wasteland.
Upon hearing this, Long Wande didn't know how to respond, since the shelter was indeed secretly conducting some kind of experiment, concealing it from its inhabitants.
Of course, Long Wande was very shocked by Huo Yuhao, who had come from across the continent. He had not expected that the people on the west coast had rebuilt their civilization to such an extent, unlike the capital wasteland which was still in chaos.
At the same time, he was amazed that Huo Yuhao, who was so much younger than him, dared to cross the entire continent to come here.
As for Huo Yuhao's attempt to find a way home, Long Wande himself had no clue, as he had never heard of the place name Xingluo before.
Huo Yuhao was not surprised by this; in fact, he was already prepared.
So, the two men and the dog set off deep into the wasteland of the capital.
The post-nuclear wasteland of the capital remains chaotic, with people struggling to find food and shelter for tomorrow and access to radiation-free water.
There are not many truly rebuilt civilizations here, only scattered settlements and towns.
At this moment, in the Capital Wasteland, the two largest forces on the surface are the Brotherhood of Steel, which has come from the West Coast.
Huo Yuhao was initially very wary of this familiar force, after all, he had fought a war against the Brotherhood of Steel in Mojave.
After learning about the situation here, he discovered that the Brotherhood of Steel located in the Eastern Capital Wasteland was very different from the one in the West, and in some ways even exceeded his expectations.
However, at this moment, Huo Yuhao did not have much contact with the Iron Brothers in the East, as he was more focused on finding a way home.
Another force in the capital wasteland is the Enclave, an organization that has virtually disappeared in the west but still wields considerable influence in the east.
Currently, Huo Yuhao can only hear their propaganda broadcasts from some eyeball robots in the wasteland, and he has never seen any members of the organization.
As for the other organizations in the capital wasteland, they don't have much influence.
Meanwhile, Huo Yuhao and Long Wande are searching for clues in the wasteland of the capital.
They had fought super mutants in the subway station beneath the ruins, killed raiders and bandits on the ruins, killed mad ghouls who had lost their minds, and even the terrifying Deathclaw.
They went to the region of the Exiles, who had split off from the Eastern Brotherhood of Steel and were more inclined towards Western theories, and used the Pip-Boy in Long Wand's hands to open some kind of laboratory.
I experienced it once, simulating going back to the pre-war period and participating in the Battle of Anchorage.
Even if it was just a simulation, Huo Yuhao saw the extent to which a battle between two major powers could go before a nuclear war broke out.
Although the simulation always felt awkward, as if it was deliberately made that way, what Huo Yuhao saw from the simulation still deeply shocked him.
The fighter jets flying overhead, the combat suits that can stealthily refract surrounding light to achieve invisibility, and the chimera tanks—these are things that have long been abandoned in the wasteland but are used on the battlefield.
Furthermore, the all-encompassing warfare, encompassing both distant and close-range engagements, from the air to the ground, is something the wasteland cannot currently accomplish.
Of course, this did not help Huo Yuhao find any way home. In fact, after the simulation ended, the exiles argued over the technology in the laboratory and eventually turned into infighting.
The final result was that both sides were badly injured and few survived. During this process, Huo Yuhao and Long Wande saw the corpse of a refugee in a corner, who had died and whose arm had been torn off.
It seems that nothing more needs to be said.
Their exploration of the Capital Wasteland continued, as they fought against slave traders, rescued slaves, and visited the Lincoln Memorial to see former slaves struggling against the slave traders.
I saw the White House with the huge crater it was bombed into, visited the National Museum, saw a large number of artifacts, and even found a replica of the Declaration of Independence signed by this pre-war nation...
However, none of this could help Huo Yuhao return home, while Long Wande, in the process, learned about his father's whereabouts.
Then they went to Rivettown, where a pre-war aircraft carrier was moored, now a small town in the wasteland of the capital.
When Huo Yuhao saw this steel behemoth standing there for the first time, he felt the same emotion as when he saw the Hoover Dam: people before the war could achieve this.
Then, in Rivettown, besides meeting a mayor who was a synthetic being disguised as a human, they found the scientist who had previously worked with Long Wand's father and learned that the scientist might be heading to Vault 112.
Upon learning of this situation, they went there. This shelter was much smaller than ordinary shelters, and the residents lived in simulation pods, immersing themselves in a virtual world.
Because there were only a limited number of remaining simulation pods, Long Wande went in alone, while the boy and Gou Rou waited outside.
While waiting, he looked at the dog meat beside him, then took out a can of food from his person. Although it was produced before the war, it was still edible after nearly two hundred years, which was nothing short of a miracle.
When the can of food was opened and placed in front of or behind the dog meat noodles, it immediately lowered its head and started eating.
Upon seeing this, Huo Yuhao squatted down by the wall and sighed helplessly.
After arriving in the capital wasteland, I visited so many places and saw a lot of information about that pre-war country, like that copy of the Declaration of Independence.
When I read the contents, especially the sentence "All men are created equal," I felt a shock, as if something had shattered inside me.
This was something I had never imagined when I was in Douluo Continent.
In this world, hundreds of years before the outbreak of nuclear war, when the nation on this land was just being established, such ideas existed.
Of course, I know in my heart that everything has changed since then, otherwise there would have been no nuclear war, and there would be no place like the Vault where people are used as experimental materials.
However, this statement is not wrong in this world, but in Douluo Continent...
Thinking about this, Huo Yuhao might want to deny that statement, but a certain emotion in his heart prevented him from accepting that idea.
After that, Huo Yuhao could only let out a helpless sigh, thinking that he still had no clue how to get home.
The dog meat quickly finished its canned food, licking it clean. Seeing this, he prepared to take out the water bottle and pour some water for the dog meat.
Just then, the sound of the simulator being opened rang out.
When Huo Yuhao and Gou Rou looked over at the sound, they saw two hatches open, and then Long Wande woke up from one of them, as did another middle-aged man.
Upon seeing this, Huo Yuhao guessed that Long Wande had found the father he was looking for.
What happened next was that the two of them met and reminisced about the past, and only then did they notice that they had dog meat with them.
After a brief introduction, the middle-aged man was quite surprised that he came from the West and that the West Coast had been rebuilt to such an extent.
However, at this moment, Huo Yuhao still suggested leaving, and the two of them did not object.
Then the three of them and the dog headed to Rivet Town, but Huo Yuhao stopped before entering the town.
Seeing this, Long Wand turned to look at himself and asked, "What's wrong?"
Upon hearing this, he said, "You go back. I think I still need to find a way home, so see you again someday."
Upon hearing this, Long Wande opened his mouth, wanting to say something but unable to utter a word. The time they had spent together made him realize how important it was to him to go home.
Therefore, at this moment, Long Wande spoke up, saying, "If you have any difficulties, come to us. We hope we can help you."
Hearing this, he nodded, while Dog Meat was still looking at him. He told Dog Meat to follow Long Wande, and then turned around and continued walking towards the wasteland.
Having no clue how to get home, I kept walking eastward.
Afterwards, he came to this ferry crossing, originally just to find some supplies nearby, but he received a request from a mother to go to a small island to find her daughter.
Faced with this task, he readily accepted it and, according to the instructions, went to a small island called Wanghaiya.
He did find the girl on that island, but the place was full of eeriness. However, in the wasteland where mutated creatures roamed, none of that mattered.
Of course, there seemed to be some kind of cult on that island, but those cult members and strange creatures all fell to the ground under the bullets fired from the redwood revolvers in their hands.
After that, he took the girl there, but when he returned, he carried a black book with him.
The book was found on the island. I originally planned to go back and see if it contained any information about the pre-war period or how to get home.
However, after the book was placed on him, something unusual happened. At first, it wasn't obvious, but after he left the island, the unusual behavior became more and more apparent.
After returning to the dock and handing the girl over to the mother, he began to leave.
At that moment, I felt a kind of chaotic disorder, or like some kind of whispering voice, appearing in my ears and then drilling into my brain.
Even my vision became blurry; when I took off my gloves, I could see my own palms becoming blurry.
All of this felt so chaotic to me; only by constantly circulating my soul power within my body and activating my spiritual eyes could I counteract some of the noise.
But the voice didn't disappear; it seemed to be guiding me somewhere.
I don't know where I'm going or what's going on, but at this moment I can only walk in that direction.
The location in question was an abandoned building in the wasteland of the capital, filled with mad, mindless zombies.
At the time, I couldn't figure out what was inside, so I could only walk in the direction indicated, and all the attacking ghouls were shot down.
When he finally arrived at a cavern beneath the building, he saw a twisted obelisk with distorted patterns carved on it, and a ghoul kneeling in worship around it.
Seeing this, he clutched his increasingly confused head and asked the corpse where he was.
But the ghoul didn't react at all. Seeing this, he shot it in the head and then looked at the obelisk.
At that moment, I subconsciously reached for the black book, and then I seemed to realize something, so I placed the book on top of it.
In an instant, a strange flame appeared, instantly reducing the book to nothing, and the whispers that had been lingering in her ear also vanished immediately.
Just when he thought everything would return to normal, as the whispers disappeared from his ears, another strange feeling appeared around him, which made him look at the obelisk once again.
At this moment, another strange feeling clearly emerged. The obelisk seemed to be attracting him, as if it were a place where he could realize the dream he had always hoped to achieve.
The moment a sensation arose, his eyes sharpened, and the Geiger counter he carried was beeping incessantly, indicating strong radiation in the area.
Looking at that obelisk, he thought of the stone statues worshipped by those cults.
Huo Yuhao didn't know what this thing was or what it was used for, and he looked at the corpse of the zombie that had just been kneeling before him.
The boy raised the redwood revolver in his hand, his soul power flowing continuously within him, and a glimmer of light flashed in his spiritual eyes.
I don't care if breaking this thing brings bad luck, and I'm not afraid of any punishment as those cultists claim. But I won't allow this thing to continue existing here.
"I still prefer reality." After saying this, a gunshot rang out, and the bullet flew towards the obelisk. When the last bullet was fired, a crack appeared on the obelisk and began to spread.
In an instant, that eerie feeling vanished, and a sense of clarity filled my mind; the eerie feeling that had just appeared also disappeared.
Seeing this, he turned and left the abandoned building, continuing his search for a way home in the wasteland.
As he continued his journey through the capital wasteland, he then saw a super mutant appear in the distance.
This is a normal reality in the capital wasteland, and during this time in the East, not a single super mutant who could communicate normally was encountered.
The situation was different now, because the super mutant was accompanied by a dog.
The dog itself recognized that it was dog meat.